


Skinny Love

by breaumonts (AnonymousCatastrophe405)



Series: I'll Fall With You [3]
Category: The Royal Romance (Visual Novel)
Genre: Airports, F/M, Found Family, Friendship/Love, Gen, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 01:11:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19983586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousCatastrophe405/pseuds/breaumonts
Summary: Skinny Love-(n.) When two people love each other and are too shy to admit it, but do so anyway"I was so afraid you wouldn't come.""I would've found you."





	1. Skinny Love

**Author's Note:**

> A pair of drabbles from two Tumblr prompts.

Lisette’s socks don’t match. 

It really stands out in Maxwell’s mind, and once he notices it he can’t help but focus on it. It’s such a silly thing, such a small thing, really, but her socks don’t match and it makes something in his chest ache. 

They almost hadn’t made it in time, forcing their way through throngs of tourists and Cordonians congesting the corridors of the international airport – Maxwell is fairly certain he vaulted over someone’s luggage at one point, but so much of tonight is a blur he can’t be sure – running ahead of their security detail to try and catch Lisette before she boarded the only flight destined for the United States. That neither of them slipped and fell on the tile in their hard-soled dress shoes is a miracle. That Bertrand somehow managed to keep up most of the way despite everything was another.

“D24,” Bertrand panted. “Go, I’ll catch up.” 

Maxwell left him doubled over and clutching at a stitch in his side in the middle of the concourse, bolting down the length of the International terminal.

He had to make it. He’d chase the plane down on the tarmac if he had to, but he couldn’t let Lisette leave like this. He couldn’t let the last time he saw her be from over Bastien’s shoulder as she was escorted out of the ballroom.

He runs every day, but his heart pounded like it hadn’t in years: _Lis-ette, Lis-ette, Lis-ette._

But there was no one left sitting at Gate D24. 

His heart stopped.

She was gone. He hadn’t made it in time. 

His lungs burned.

She was gone. 

The plane was still sitting on the tarmac, but there was no way he’d be allowed anywhere near it now that the gate was closed. The flight attendant at the desk had a clunky-looking corded phone to her ear.

“Lisette Carignan to Gate D24,” she said. “Miss Carignan, this is your final boarding call for PB Flight 101 to John F. Kennedy Airport.”

His heart started again, hopeful and stupid as ever, and he turned around, trying to find her in the crowd.

She was sitting with a single suitcase several gates over, still and uncomfortably surrounded by the most severe looking Royal Guards Maxwell had ever seen, but she caught sight of him as he found her and she stood, abandoning her bag with the guards.

They met each other halfway before she could be stopped, their hands fisted against each other’s clothes, faces pressed to necks so tightly it hurt to breathe. She sobbed against him.

“I was so afraid you wouldn’t come,” she whispered.

Nothing in the universe would have kept him from her tonight. He would’ve died first. “I would’ve found you.”

She laughed, then sobbed again, and pressed her face to his neck. 

Now she’s asleep, curled up on the bed beside him and still wearing her jeans, her hair stiffly half-curled from its updo earlier in the night, wearing mismatched socks like the most ordinary woman in the world. It makes his heart convulse a bit to look at her from his place on the bench at the foot of the bed, listening to her snore gently from exhaustion.

She’s here. She’s safe. She’s not going anywhere anytime soon, not if he’s alive to go after her and bring her home again.


	2. Serendipity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I’d rather stay out here with you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Serendipity** \- _(n.) finding something good without looking for it_

The longer she sits here, the harder it is to will herself to move. 

The Royal Guards flanking her glare at her, impassive and imposing, and Lisette realizes she’s just prolonging the inevitable by waiting until the last possible minute to board her flight back to the States. For too many reasons to name, she doesn’t want to leave. Despite the stress of living at court and the expense of more or less paying her own way here, she loves Cordonia, and as much as she misses New York like a phantom limb, she’d stay in a heartbeat if she had anywhere to go.

She thinks of Maxwell pushing through the crowd as she was escorted out of Liam’s coronation. She thinks of Bertrand hissing at her that they’d fix this. She thinks of their beautiful, empty house and the long hours she’s spent there over the last several months, the rare occasions she caught Bertrand smiling at something she did well or at something Maxwell said. The times Maxwell made her laugh until she cried, how he blushed whenever she teased him, how he was always there to help her get ready and make her feel like she belonged at every event just as much as he did. 

_I’d rather stay out here with you._

His smile had been so shy he’d had to look away from her.

“This is the final boarding call for PB Flight 101 to New York City.”

One of the guards says something to her, but she doesn’t move. It’s like she’s forgotten how to stand, and her grip on the single suitcase they’d allowed her to pack before she was removed from the palace tightens.

Did Bertrand mean it? Are they really going to fix this in the next few minutes?

_I’d rather stay out here with you._

The line at the gate for her flight is long and quickly shortening as the attendants check passengers onto the plane. From her seat, she can watch it dwindle down, and she can see down the main concourse of the international terminal, and she wonders how fast she could run and lose the guards before being forcibly put on the plane.

_I’d rather stay here with you._

A man in a blue suit skids on the tile at the other end of the terminal as he rounds the corner, nearly knocking a potted tree over. She knows that suit. Her heart stutters and her grip goes white. The line is nearly at its end, but she’s staring at the man in the blue suit and praying her eyes aren’t playing tricks on her, even as the guards get restless that she’s not trying to board the plane.

The attendant uses the intercom to page her directly, warning her that she’s running out of time, and Maxwell stops, his chest heaving as he looks around. He sees her, and she can tell from the relief on his face that she’s not imagining him.

_I’d rather stay here with you._

She’s on her feet and running to him before the guards can stop her, and he meets her halfway with his arms open to receive her, and she’s so overwhelmed by the feeling of his arms around her and the smell of his cologne and how he feels like home that she sobs.

“I was so afraid you wouldn’t come,” she whispers against his neck. He’s holding her so tightly it almost hurts to breathe, but she can’t let him go, either.

“I would’ve found you,” he whispers back, his lips against her temple. Over his shoulder, she can see Bertrand break into a jog to reach them, and it makes her laugh.


End file.
